Google and Inc. Magazine sponsored “The future of digital marketing: strategies you need to succeed,” on December 5, 2014 at the Inc. headquarters located in the World Trade Center. Inc. senior writer Christine Lagorio-Chafkin interviewed David Sable about his experiences in marketing and business.

David Sable is a longtime advertising executive who sees digital as a way to enhance our lives, not supplant them.

“Digital is everything, but not everything is digital,” is Sable’s mantra. While his crystal ball on the future of marketing is admittedly “cloudy,” he is clear that digital puts an increased importance on making live experiences better.

Contrary to his titled talk, Sable didn’t come to spew strategies. You can look to his blog for specifics. Sable is the Global CEO of Young & Rubicam, an entrepreneur and investor that has been in the marketing industry since the 70s. He thinks the ad world was late to innovate with technology, but they’re trying to make up for it now – for better or for worse.

Sable has the knowledge of an advertising historian and talks about today’s digital revolution through the lens of an ad exec that has seen it all. He debunked digital hype and reminded the audience that it is not all about what’s on our phones, even though it seems like it is.

2014 was the year of “people beginning to understand that we live in the real world,” he said. Sable believes the biggest mistake is in thinking the experience should be on the phone. Instead it should be about creating an easy way to take that experience offline.

“Analysts 10 to 15 years ago said retail was going to die,” Sable said, quipping that analysts are always wrong. “They said there’d be no more restaurants or movies. We’d do nothing that required us to leave our home.”

This year’s most highly valued digital startups are not loved, downloaded and discussed just for their digital interface, but more for their concept, which encourages us to act contrary to analysts’ predictions.

Sable used startup glasses company Warby Parker as an example of a company that truly combines real and digital. They started solely online. Their business model involves sending users five pairs of glasses to customers to try on, an idea that came from customers’ requests to see and try on the product.

“They thought, ‘Wow look at the experience they have when they try glasses on with friends around,” Sable said. That’s not new, he said. Humans have an innate desire for in-person, tactile and social experiences.

Sable said he predicted Warby Parker would open stores because they would face inventory shortages. Sure enough, they opened their retail space in 2013 and have opened more this year, for that reason. These physical stores also help with marketing, reinforcing the brand and adding to the overall experience.

Even though we’re in the year of the face to face, Sable said it doesn’t mean that digital marketing is a bad thing.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “It means we need to think about marketing in a bigger sense. How does digital impact what they do?”

Companies have come to Sable with misguided interpretations of what an Internet presence does. He’s heard from Fortune 500 companies, “We’re on YouTube,” “We need to get on Facebook,” or, better yet, “Make me a viral.”

Being on social media because it’s newish does not a company innovative, he said. It isn’t just about getting on social, but how you make an impact there.

By now, most of us know how to do the basics on Twitter – send a tweet, use a hashtag, follow another user. In an AlleyBoost class at Mercy College, entrepreneur and freelance web developer Max Savin taught how to scale those personal interactions that make Twitter such a popular social media platform to benefit business. Here is a recap of Savin’s class, where he revealed advanced methods to optimize Twitter to market business and convert social media to customers.

Google ads and SEO have become the traditional, conventional methods in online marketing. Savin said Google is actually ineffective because ads are expensive – each click costs $1 to $5. Plus, it can take up to three months for the site to update its index. Small companies don’t have that much time to test if their online marketing strategy works.

Twitter is a better ROI, the investment being time and some money for outside services (listed below) that help with targeted marketing. Savin says with his strategies, each day business can gain 200-500 real, targeted “followers”, receive 50-150 website visitors, acquire new customers and build a community.

Twitter is a personal, effective and – best of all – free way to reach a targeted audience. To every Twitter action, “favorite” or “reply,” the person on the other end receives emails and notifications. Even the emails look like an advertisement. And what other type of “advertisement” is as gratifying for the consumer as a notification of a social like?

Before reaching out to customers, Savin says to ensure your businesses’ profiled and header photos, description and first three tweets are perfect (you can edit this in settings → edit profile). Keep up to date with the account so “followers” see the business as credible and relevant. Also, push out good content that is curated for your followers.

Then you can start reaching out to potential customers.

1. Find potential customers Use Twitter’s advanced search feature to find the people who could be interested in your business. Twitter hides this, so Google “Twitter advanced search,” or click here. With this search, you can find exactly who you want – people that are talking about something relevant to your business, in a certain location, speaking a certain language, etc.

2. “Favorite” their tweets “Favoriting” a tweet is Twitter’s equivalent to a Facebook like. It’s really simple and people like it. Savin calls it a powerful tap on the shoulder.

When someone’s tweet is favorited, they receive a notification, which not only feels good but also tells them your business exists. The conversion rate is “favorite” is 1-5%.

Splurky uses information from the Search query to automatically favorite new tweets every hour (To write this article I accidentally signed up and it worked – maybe too well). The TurboClicker plug-in will favorite tweets for you.

Twitter allows 2,000 favorites per day. Unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn’t push that information in your newsfeed and it’s a bit harder to find (if you click more on the header of someone’s Twitter profile, favorites is an option). It’s unlikely that other users will notice you’ve gone on a favoriting spree. However, this technique is best for small companies, since you could accidentally favorite stupid tweets. That would look bad for a public company.

3. “Follow” people A follow basically means you’re subscribing to someone’s tweets and their tweets will now show up in your Twitter newsfeed. It’s more involved than just a “favorite”.

You can also follow the people found using Advanced Search. Another way is with an app like Tweepi, which automatically follows other user’s followers that are active on Twitter. So if you want to reach out to all the people that follow a competitor, or another company with the same demographic, use this. Flutter also does this more accurately, and Turbo clicks for you. Twitter allows a maximum of 1,000 follows/day and has a ratio rule – for every follower you can follow 1.1 people. These apps will help you unfollow people that don’t follow back within 24 hours or who are not active on Twitter.

4. Direct message A direct message is private like a Facebook message or an email, but users view it on Twitter. If you want to thank someone for a follow, a DM is a good way to do it so your feed isn’t filled with @whoever thanks for the follow! It looks spammy.

If you’re going to send a DM, use it as an opportunity to add value. Example, “Thanks for the follow, come in to our store by the end of the month and receive 10% off.” If you’re getting a lot of followers, you can use SocialOomph.com and AutoDirectMessage.com, to set up automatic response.

5. Measure resultsTwitter analytics keeps track of which tweets have been read and by how many people. (You have to sign up for Twitter’s ad program, but it is free). followerwonk.com checks demographic data and bufferapp.com will send out Tweets based on when most people are looking.

With these tricks, you can get the most out of Twitter’s functions and make friendly online interactions that can turn into real business.